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The Soapbox: On your deathbed, you will not regret gaming
In last week's edition of The Soapbox, Mike Foster reminded us that the grim specter of death comes to us all and asserted that when your time comes, "you will not wish you had spent more time gaming." Mike took the stance that gaming provides temporary joys that can't replace real-life experiences and that it's our inherent responsibility as human beings with finite lifespans to seek out those experiences. He argued that "gaming is a hobby and not a replacement for a life well-lived" and that it's not our gaming achievements but our real life ones that we'll proudly tell our grandchildren. I think we can all agree that it's important to have offline hobbies and interests that help you keep active, but I take exception to the notion that we might regret time spent gaming on our deathbeds. Published data on the top five regrets of the dying actually seems to directly refute this idea, and my life experiences have shown the exact opposite of some of the points Mike makes. MMOs have given me some experiences that I'll probably treasure for a lifetime, and gaming as a hobby has provided me with much more than just temporary joys and escapism; it's helped me discover talents I didn't know I possessed, given me the push I needed to get a good education, led me to employment, and put me in contact with lifelong friends. On my deathbed, I'll probably wish I'd spent more time gaming rather than less. In this opinion piece, I look at evidence that suggests we won't regret gaming on our deathbeds and make the case that gaming can be just as worthwhile as offline pursuits.
The Daily Grind: What gaming-related choice would you have regretted if the world had ended?
If you're reading this, it's proof that the end of the Mayan calendar did not result in the end of civilization and the world. Shocking, really. But if it had ended yesterday, there are a few things that I really would have been sad about. I can just see myself looking at the rising waves of burning destruction and thinking that now I'd really never get a chance to play WildStar. And I'd be dead, but priorities. So let's turn this over to you, dear readers. If the world had ended, as everything crumbled to ash, what gaming-related thing would you have regretted? Would you have wished that you had played Tabula Rasa when you had the chance? That you had specced for tanking instead of damage in Star Wars: The Old Republic? That you had waited until The Secret World was buy-to-play before picking up a copy? Or just that you hadn't tried to talk to your guild by voice chat while you were a bit tipsy? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
SOE's John Smedley expresses regrets over SWG mishaps
Star Wars Galaxies may be no more, but its legacy lives on in memories, discussion, and hindsight analysis. Sony Online Entertainment's John Smedley had a frank talk with Industry Gamers in which he owns up to the mistakes of how the studio handled the title, particularly surrounding the much-maligned Combat Upgrade and New Game Enhancements. What would Smedley do if he could go back and give it another try? His first regret is launching the game before the space combat system was done, and his second is that SOE didn't talk and listen to its players more. "We would have encouraged more in-depth discussion with the community surrounding the idea of any game modifications," he said. Smedley is highly optimistic for the studio's future, particularly in its fervent belief in the free-to-play business model: "We think that 'Free to Play, Your Way' is our future. Giving players choices is the theme of how we're moving forward as a company, which means greater flexibility for our player base."
The Daily Grind: What are your MMO regrets?
"Regrets, I've had a few -- but then again, too few to mention," Frank Sinatra once sang. "I did what I had to do and followed through without exemption." Tell me all about it, brother. Most of us have accumulated regrets from our gaming experiences over the years. Perhaps you didn't jump on board a terrific title back in its hayday and now can only experience it in its twilight years. Maybe there's a guild with which you built up tight relationships -- and then you let those relationships fall to the wayside as your interest in the game faltered. It could even be something as small as choosing a class ill-suited to you but refusing to give it up after you put a heap-load of time into it. What do you regret doing -- or not doing -- in MMOs? And more importantly, how have you been able to live with yourself ever since? Perhaps we should start a Massively Regret Recovery support group. Anyone who purchased Star Wars Galaxies' Trials of Obi-Wan right before the NGE is invited to be the keynote speaker of the first session. Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Breakfast Topic: What are your resolutions for the expansion?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. In the final days of old Azeroth, before the Shattering, my friends were chomping at the bit. They were farming the elemental bosses for JP, taking screenshots of Darkshore and Stormwind Park, and discussing names for their forthcoming gnome priests. Where was I, while all this was going on? Far out in the Bay of Storms in Azshara, fighting a giant "minnow" named Maws. Yes, that's right: in the final hours of Wrath, I was finishing the Blue Shard portion of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands quest line. A little late? Yeah, you could say that. An eternal procrastinator, I started the entire chain with Only One May Rise exactly three days before the Shattering occurred. As fellow Scepter-chasers will already realize, my efforts were truly epic -- and alas, all for naught. Though I was able to obtain the Blue and Green scepter shards after a mammoth three days of questing, farming, and running all over Azeroth, the Red scepter shard requires a second, fresh lockout of Blackwing Lair, and I did not have one. No Scepter for me. I don't regret doing the quest line, even if I didn't end up with the Feat of Strength; I'm a big quest nerd, and I loved experiencing the lore. I do, however, regret not starting earlier. Therefore, in Cataclysm, I've made myself a promise: I will do every quest available to me, from Hillsbrad to Mount Hyjal, Darkshore to Deepholm. As I go through the lowbie zones on my Loremaster druid, I won't move on when I get the achievement; I'll complete everything available, just to see what happens. Is there anything you were unable to finish before the Shattering? What are your resolutions for playing in a post-Cataclysm Azeroth?
Breakfast Topic: Your biggest regrets from the Wrath era
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Despite the fact that most of the WoW-playing population is eagerly looking forward to and enjoying the content that Cataclysm has to offer, there are still many things that one could look back upon from the previous expansion and feel sad about. Whether it was a missed opportunity or perhaps an achievement that didn't quite get accomplished, I think all of us have something that we feel sucks amid all the hubbub over Cataclysm. I myself have quite a few things I miss, now that they are no longer obtainable. While it wasn't from lack of trying, the fact that both the Swift Razzashi Raptor and the Swift Zulian Tiger are not part of my massive mount collection is saddening. Both my friend and I went to try for them on every reset, even sometimes on multiple characters, but to no avail. Hopefully, Blizzard will bring them back in some form, but like the Amani War Bear, it feels a little unrealistic. Second, and while not as tangible as missing a chance at something rare, the fact that I spent the last day before the Shattering doing a long, painful rep grind instead of getting out and enjoying the last vestiges of the old world will forever go down in my gaming career as my biggest Cataclysm regret. As a proud explorer and mystery hunter, I should have been out in the world those last couple of hours before the server reset, grabbing screenshots and visiting familiar faces before they were erased permanently from the landscape I've been enjoying for the past six years. Instead of looking forward, I ask you this: What do you look back upon from your time in Wrath and wish you could have done over? Done differently? What do you most regret now?
Breakfast topic: Your biggest regret?
There are some things in World of Warcraft I wish I could have done differently. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like had I rolled a different class other than a priest. There are bosses that I wish I had killed before they became irrelevant. Alas, it all boils down to time that I wish I had. As both a GM and a player, it is difficult to foresee the results of your actions and you never know what the correct choice is. Even when killing bosses and healing my raider group, I've made crucially wrong decisions. And it sucks when I realize a global cooldown spent on a Pain Suppression instead of Power Word: Shield would've saved a wipe. Have you ever experienced a moment or made a decision that you've regretted since?
Valve: MS, Yahoo, others turned down chance to build Steam
Now that Steam is running 300 games and 15 million subscribers strong, Valve's grand experiment in digital distribution seems like a no-brainer. Some of the titans of the computer industry apparently didn't see it that way, though, when given a chance to get in on the ground floor years ago."We went around to Yahoo, Microsoft...and anybody who seemed like a likely candidate to build something like Steam," Valve marketing veep Doug Lombardi told GamesIndustry.biz in an interview. "We went around to everybody and asked 'Are you guys doing anything like this?' And everyone was like 'That's a million miles in the future ... We can't help you." Valve, of course, proceeded to single-handedly bring the future to the present (which is now nearly five years in the past) and the rest is history.Readers without a vested interest in Microsoft and/or Yahoo should check out the full interview, where Lombardi talks about piracy, independence, and the future of PC gaming. Anyone involved with those two companies would probably be better off visiting this handy site first.
DS Daily: Regrettable
Don't feel bad -- everyone does it. Sometimes, we all buy a game, and then later, kinda wish we hadn't. The reasons are many: no time for it, so it sits on the shelf and collects dust while you play other games, or maybe a friend recommended it and you took a chance (or a blog, perhaps?), or maybe it just looked a heck of a lot better than it actually was. Whatever the reason, are there any DS games you regret buying this year?
The wisdom of experience
Keen wrote a great piece over on Keen and Graev's Gaming blog that really caught my attention. Obviously Keen has been "around the block" like I have and has his share of regrets just like the rest of us who have been chained to the MMOG genre for any length of time. He reaches back to some of the past games he's played and talks about some of the mistakes he's made that he won't ever repeat. I'll make you read the article to find out his other two, but his first one is no not take an officer position in a guild on impulse and to give it a lot of thought. I couldn't agree more. More than a few of the twenty odd guilds I've been in over the course of my MMOG experience have crumbled because of mediocre or semi-committed leadership, or leadership that wasn't united in focus and direction. Regrets are not something that need to stay chained to us that keep us from meeting our potential. Identifying our regrets help us to improve ourselves. What are your biggest regrets in World of Warcraft or in other games you've played in the past? What are you doing to ensure you don't make those mistakes again?
The regrets of Warcraft
With the expansion nearly upon us, those of us who are not busy killing everything in sight in PVP may look back on the days we've spent in the World of Warcraft. Have we used our time wisely? Do we have fond memories of times spent with friends, or only lonely nights fishing in Tanaris? What have we done, and just as importantly, what do we regret not doing? A thread on the Raids and Dungeons Forum talks about all the quests left unfinished, the mobs left unkilled, and the items left unused. Turns out a lot of Horde saved their Really Sticky Glue and Slumber Sand for fifty levels, only to find out that the mobs in 40-man raids are immune. How unfortunate! Others express their wish to fill out the world map, finish every furbolg-killing quest, run Ragefire Chasm as Alliance, or transmute an Essence of Air to an Essence of Fire. Do you have any last things you want to finish in Azeroth before journeying to Outlands?
